FROM THE DAWGHOUSE….
Prayer Matters
At a recent Forge leadership meeting, the subject of the day was prayer. Always a good subject, one that will always stir up opinions, questions, confusions, and everything in between. Of course, the biggest question of them all is often “Does prayer work?” Right?
I mean, how does God decide what to do when we ask him for something? Does it really do any good to ask in the first place? Isn’t He going to do whatever He wants anyway?
The short answer, at least from my limited perspective, is we don’t know, or at least I don’t. God has yet to tell me how things work. But He has told us one very important thing – we are supposed to pray! He says it does matter. He says, tell me what you want, how you feel. He wants to know. He wants to hear it from you. It matters to Him.
And if God says to do something, it has always been my experience that the best thing is to do it. I have a guess as to why maybe God hasn’t told us how this works – and it’s only a guess. I think maybe if we knew how it worked, we would stop talking. If we thought we had it worked out how prayer got answered, we would keep asking, even demanding, but would stop really talking. We’d put in our orders, you might say, and not really talk with the One who made us. We do that quite a bit even as it is.
Those dark questions that come in the night, like why when I prayed for a friend they got well, but when I prayed just as hard for Uncle Bob, he died? I don’t know. God never promised to tell me why everything happens the way it does. But He did promise me that anytime I wanted to talk, He would be happy to listen. And in a world where so many people feel they are all alone, that’s a pretty great thing to know.
Prayer is one of the unlimited resources available to each of us!
It is always the starting point when we move toward God. In prayer we set aside our agendas (hopefully), letting God’s priorities become our priorities, and we receive His resources.
One more thing.
You don’t have to learn some special prayer jargon to start a conversation with God. Honesty and a willingness to establish a personal relationship with Him are the only requirements. God is looking for an opportunity to reveal Himself to you, so if you put Him to the test and then watch for an answer without too many preconceptions about how that answer will come, I can guarantee you that you’ll be in for some exciting surprises.
Prayerful blessings to you all.
Joe Bouch
